Day 47 (Guangxi region: Nanning - Beihai)

I have spent a few days in Nanning soaking up the smog and doing the typical Chinese city thing (go out at night and sleep during the day). My Vietnam visa expires tommorrow and low and behold I am not in Vietnam, if you remember the reason for going to Vietnam was first and foremost to explore the islands in Halong Bay, North vietnam.

However two days ago I saw a picture of some very small coastal islands somewhere between the Vietnam border and Beihai (South Guangxi). Problem is that there is no info on these islands, I can't even find a name. I have seen two maps, niether of them show the islands (probably to small), but I have seen them on google earth, so I know they exist!!!! So today I leave for Beihai, armed with a picture of these islands and half a kilo of peanuts.

Although knowing China, I will probably be greeted by an endless supply of mac Donalds, hotels and karaoke bars on the islands. Anyway will just have to wait and see!

Day 39-42 (Laos)

During the previous night we had somehow agreed to get involved with locals, rebuilding a house that had been swept away by the river a few weeks prior. The experience was great, the house was a simple design that we managed to almost complete the first day. Many locals had taken part in the building process and the "chief" of the village had also come to assist.

The food during these two days was the highlight, everything was local all within walking distance from the house (snake soup, waterbuffallo blood soup, bamboo salad, papaya salad, fried fish, everything was harvested or cought/slaughtered that day), we ate on bannana leaves and strangely enough for those two days, really felt like a local, the whole thing was great and by the end of the second day we had completed the house. The family moved in and we moved on.

My Brommie and Irish freinds had gone on and I had run out of money and not being able to draw from my card I was rightly screwed, luckly I could cover transport back to China and accomodation for one night but no cash for food. I was fortunate enough to get a 10000kip donation form another traveller which covered a pack of instant noodles and some fruit. So with nothing left to do I spent my last day roaming the village.

The next morning was used to get a ticket to China and marked the end of my Laoation adventure.

More Laos Photos

Cruising Down the Nam Tha River

The end of the day and the end of another adventure.

Day 38 (Laos)

Woke up to yet more rain (surprise surprise) and to find that our rope for the raft had been stolen, now when rope is the only thing keeping you raft together that can be a big problem!!!! We managed to find some old electric cable that had been out of use for some time to replace the rope, but by this point moral was low and tempers were high. But we got back on the river and all was good again, the sun came out and with that an all round better mood.

We decided that a bamboo raft would make life even better and stopped to go and explore the jungle for bamboo (which is really easy to find in Laos). 3 hours later with nothing but a swiss army knife we had a 5 piece 5 meter long bamboo raft, after 30seconds of testing we were happy with the result and more importantly from this point onwards we would be dry!!!!!!


Our new and improved raft parked next to a Acca cannoe, near one of the villages we past during the cruise.

The raft worked like a bomb, we could actually stand on it as we cruised downriver. Steering the raft however was another matter and after knocking into two trees and later head on into the pillion of a bridge which saw us closer than ever to capsizing, yet the raft escaped with zero damage.

We stopped again numerous times to explore the surrounding jungle for food, we also found some bannana trees, however there were few ripe ones to be found, we also later discovered that we had missed many papaya's hanging right over our heads!!! We did however find plenty leeches...or they found us? By that afternoon I looked like I had chicken pox, red dots all over my legs, and mixed with all the mosquitoe bites we really looked bad.

We stopped for supper at a local boat station (no idea where). Here is were things went pear shaped we didn't continue from here, and now I will be honest with you, I am regretting that decision, there were many factor that went into it, but still I think fatique, hunger and the fact that we had done what we first set out to do seemed Ok at the time, but it would have been great to get to the Mekong (and this will scrape at me for many weeks to come!!!). This has become my main reason to return to Laos.

That night we returned to the guest house both to celebrate and ponder the decision. However this can not remove the fact that this was one of the greatest times of my life. I suppose the expression "it's not the destination but the journey" was true in this case, the three days we spent building the raft and navigating the Nam tha, the people we met, the explorations into the jungle, the highs and lows all played part in this, and although I can't really express this to you the reader, I am positive that everyone has some of these moments in there lives and when asked what they did with there lives, will look back on those experiences.

Day 36 - 37 (Laos)

By 11am we had all the material for what we believed would be the raft to end all rafts, the owner of the guest house being rather amused by our idea had sponsored us the wood for the raft and we had purchased two truck tubes to act as sponsins. Building went well and by 3pm we had all the staff of the guest house helping us nail the raft together as well as a new Irish traveller equally interested in our mission. 3:30pm was the do or die moment, with tons of locals all watching from the bank of the river....how can I put this properly......GLUG GLUG GLUG. The raft handled 1 person but two put it straight down to the bottom. And just then the skies opened and it came downs by the bucket loads so depressed and rather embarressed we retreated to the guest house to regroup and replan. We really believed that our hopes of cruising the Nam Tha river had gone down with the raft.

Day 37

Agreeing to let the dream go we arrived at the bus station enroute for Luang Probang ticket in hand and baggage at the ready with only 10min to departure, it happened in of those moments of brovado/craziness/impulse?? We had the tickets refunded, went back to the tyre shop bought an extra tyre, concocted another crazy plan and left for the river. The raft was now simply 3 tyres tied to each other, one of us on iether side and the lugguage in the middle....ingenious....Ok simple but it worked. We took of on a racing Nam Tha at an extremely high level, against advice from locals, and without oars but the bottom line was that we had finally embarked left on our crazy adventure.


Although, all feelings of jubilation were soon replaced with bad humour and mild grumpiness as the rain started again and hunger set in. We landed in a small village just before night fall to find food and shelter. After an hour of looking we found a school that had a decent overhanging roof. later a little boy brought us rice and fried fish to eat, so out of the rain and fed life was once again good, however we had begun talking about how much better a bamboo raft would be.... . That night we were attacked by a million and one mosquitoes, the realization that we were in a high malaria risk area never really set in.

Day 35 (Laos)

I arrived in Laos (Luang Nam Tha) close to the border with Y400 in my wallet and two new companions (a older German gentlemen and a crazy Brommie), Laos hit us like a ton of bricks (I had no idea this level of "ruralness" existed). Within one hour we all wanted to leave this little town. Yet due to transport times the Brommie and I had no choice but to stay the night. And with a full day to kill, we had time to explore. During this exploration of Luang Nam Tha we saw some kids playing on the Nam Tha river on a truck tyre, at which point I commented on how much fun that would be! 1 Hour later the two of us had the great/stupid (I'll let you choose) idea to build a raft and travel down the Nam Tha to the Mekong river 200km away. That night we went on the prowl for raft material...however before long were being escorted back to our guest house by local police (still not sure why)? So with a general idea as to what the raft would look like we waited for morning.

Laos (Prologue)

Laos is a country like no other, a place where locals still live off the land in the truest sense of the phrase. There are few countries where you can just go explore a jungle and build bamboo rafts with what you find. I recommend to anyone visiting Laos, to stay away from restuarants and try loacal food even if you have to go eat with a local family (the food at restuarants and the food eaten by locals is completely different, no matter what they tell you!!!). Laos is still undeveloped enough to really escape for those who want to, and this pretty much sums up Laos for me.



I have absolutely no idea how to explain the last few days in Laos? I think everybody has a tangible place/location that is more to them than just earth and water...well Laos is definitely mine. I hate Laos and love it all at the same time, and although I said I would keep my posts short these won't be!!!!